Louis Hjelmslev (1899-1965), whose linguistic theories have been influential both in his native Denmark and throughout the world, here describes in larger perspective and in a manner intended for the layman, certain aspects of linguistic science. He begins by distinguishing the functional analysis of a single language from the description of a group of languages, and further distinguishes historical or genetic relations from typological or structural relations. After summarizing 19th- and 20th-century achievement in Indo-European comparative linguistics and surveying the classical Humboldtian typological classification, he proceeds to suggest that a satisfactory typology of languages based on their formal categories is the most important task facing linguists. His thesis is that beneath language usage lies a language structure which determines the identity and constancy of a language; fundamental rules can be found to govern that structure; and the transformation of languages can be conceived and described as a series of linguistic states defined in terms of the dictates of the structure. Included in this edition (which is translated by Francis J. Whitfield) is a new, final chapter which did not appear in the Danish edition. (AMM)